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EGI in Europe

The European research and innovation will increasingly rely on both geographical and science collaboration across multiple disciplines and will be pushed forward by the new Europe 2020 Strategy (EU2020). The European Commission has unveiled a growth strategy for the EU to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy within the next decade. EGI will play an important role in generating a tangible socio-economic impact for the Europe through Europe 2020 key flagship initiatives, such as the Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) and Innovation Union (IU), as well as providing a background added value that will bring cross-cutting benefits to European research and society as a whole.

One of the driving forces behind this strategy is the digital European Research Area (ERA) - a transnational effort combining research centres with ongoing programmes and projects aimed at building multidisciplinary collaborations and enabling rapid knowledge transfer across borders.

E–Infrastructures are now recognised as an essential foundation that will enable the accomplishment of the ‘fifth freedom’, i.e., the free circulation of researchers, knowledge and technology across Europe. EGI is one of key enabler of the digital ERA by linking thousands of researchers across Europe to the resources they need. In fact, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda in her speech “Giving Europe's scientists the tools to deliver” from 23th March 2012 mentioned EGI as a provider of access to shared grid and Cloud computing resources to European researchers. Following this, accelerating the development of e-Infrastructures in Europe will be a key enabler for achieving the vision of Open Science where researches have reliable, seamless and open access to computing resources and services.

EGI is fully committed to the vision of the digital ERA and Open Science to ultimately accomplish the ‘fifth freedom’ and free circulation of researchers knowledge and technology across Europe.

EGI & the Digital Agenda for Europe

In the context of the Digital Agenda for Europe, EGI can:

• Provide a single uniform market for accessing distributed computing resources and connected data in Europe through EGI’s federation of national resource providers.

• Promote competitiveness and interoperability through open standards.

• Reduce inefficient research spending and stimulate innovation across Europe by maximising the utilisation of federated national resources and knowledge within a common infrastructure.

• Offer large-scale ICT facilities that enable the exploration of new computing and data processing models that address scientific grand challenges facing society.

EGI & the Innovation Union

In the context of the Innovation Union, EGI can:

• Position itself as a key enabler of the digital ERA for the free circulation of researchers, knowledge and technology.

• Promote excellence in education and skills development by simplifying multi-disciplinary cooperation.

• Bridge geographical boundaries beyond Europe thanks to the many collaborations and integration with worldwide e-infrastructures.

Added value for Europe

In the wider context of Europe 2020 and funded in future through the Horizon 2020 programme, EGI offers a range of added value for Europe:

• EGI ensures that researchers have access to uniform and reliable computing resources, enabling faster scientific results and avenues of multi-disciplinary research otherwise not possible.

• EGI allows researchers to focus on their research rather than managing their e-Infrastructures needs.

• EGI’s monitoring and operational services guarantees an integrated, reliable and uniform service provided across organisational and national boundaries.

• EGI’s transnational integration provides effective use of resources and ensures the most effective return on Europe’s e-infrastructure investments.

• EGI enables knowledge transfer and sharing of solutions through community events, an application database and a training marketplace.

• EGI promotes open science through the availability, accessibility and reuse of scientific data & results, use of web-based tools that facilitate scientific collaboration and ensuring public access to research.